344 BOUNDARIES OF DESERTS. 



place the actual boundaries of these permanently desert 

 regions are very imperfectly ascertained; the location 

 assigned to them upon the map must consequently, 

 in the same way, be regarded only as marking their 

 approximate, and not their true position: indeed, from 

 what has been already stated, in describing the dry 

 regions of the Bush Country, it will be evident that 

 it must be a question of considerable difficulty to decide 

 at what point the dry bush country is supposed- to 

 end and the desert proper to begin ; because at certain 

 seasons immense tracts of the bush country become 

 for the time being veritable deserts : that is, if we take 

 the word " Desert " to mean an uninhabitable region, 

 where man dare not tarry, except at a few widely 

 scattered watering places, after leaving which the 

 wayfarer must hurry on or perish. 



If on the other hand we take it to mean a tract 

 of country always destitute of vegetation of any kind, 

 then there would be very few places which would 

 deserve the designation of " Desert" ; because almost 

 everywhere throughout the desert zones there is more 

 or less herbage, and occasional clumps of dwarf bushes. 



The popular idea of the desert, as a perfectly flat 

 surface of burning sand, without a particle of vegetation 

 anywhere to be seen, must therefore be regarded as 

 erroneous the surface of the desert being in fact, as 

 a rule, broken, irregular, and varied, like that of almost 

 every other extensive territory, in nearly every kind 

 of way. Some of it consists of mountains or precipitous 

 hills, the rest mostly of undulating ground ; very little 

 being really level. 



For instance, in the survey made by order of the 

 Egyptian Government in 1876, for the proposed line 



